


is there sunlight on your bed

by phollie



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: dfab nonbinary kurapika with they/their pronouns, set directly after phantom rouge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 17:19:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1786969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phollie/pseuds/phollie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Leorio?”</p><p>A hard swallow. “Yeah?” </p><p>For a few moments, Leorio thinks his call has been dropped what with how utterly soundless everything becomes on the other end; but then he hears the softness of the water moving around Kurapika’s body and their careful, quiet breathing, and then: “Keep your phone near you tonight.”</p><p>Leorio stops at a crosswalk. He watches the blinking red hand on the sign opposite of the street. His heartbeat seems to pound in time with it. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “I can definitely do that.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	is there sunlight on your bed

**one**

+

 _gold light breaks behind the houses_  
 _i don’t see what’s strange about this_  
 _tiny bubbles hang above me  
_ _it’s a sign that someone loves me_

_everything i love is on the table  
everything i love is out to sea_

-          _[don’t swallow the cap](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFnA-8H-5lo), _ the national

+

                Leorio is half-asleep in the back of a slow-moving cab when his phone rings. He doesn’t need to check the caller ID to know who it is; the tone of the ring, somehow, all but screams Kurapika. (And for the few times that it’s been Kurapika who calls first, it’s that same feeling, that same heavy undertone to the ring that seems almost like a sigh.)

                And today, that sigh seems heavier than ever, his phone feeling a solid five pounds heavier from the weight of it. All he says when he takes the call is, “I’m here.”

                He can hear Kurapika breathing through the receiver. That’s not good. When they're calm, Kurapika always breathes so quietly, moves quieter still, like water, and hearing them panting through the phone is a sure sign that the careful chains they keep wrapped tightly about themself have come undone, the floodgates of their wild feelings bursting open for everything to rush out all at once.

                “I’m here,” Leorio says again, softly, both as a comfort to Kurapika on the phone and to keep the cab driver from watching him in the rear-view mirror with funny eyes. _What?_ he thinks to the man whose name he doesn’t know. _Don’t you have someone out there who you love?_

                Kurapika keeps gasping for breath on the other end for a few horrible seconds before their voice cuts out, ragged and rough through a thin veil of static. And they say, “I stabbed a fucking sword right through Pairo’s body.”

                  Leorio’s heart sinks instantaneously.

               “It doesn’t matter if it wasn’t really him,” Kurapika gasps out. “That puppet, it looked just like him, _just_ like him…and when I stabbed him it was like he died all over again but by _my hand_ this time and – ”

                Leorio closes his eyes, holds the phone closer to his ear. “Kurapika,” he murmurs. “Don’t start thinking things like that.”

                “It’s too late,” Kurapika says, and Leorio can hear them crying, can imagine the tears slipping down their cheeks with an alarming clarity that makes his chest ache. “It’s too late to not think about it, Leorio, it’s already _happened._ ”

               “Exactly. It’s already happened.” Leorio keeps his voice gentle and quiet, lets his sigh leave him softly. “What did we talk about before? Hm? Didn’t we talk about moving forward – ”

                “I wish you were here,” Kurapika says, breathless and wild. “Don’t laugh.”

                Leorio takes a slow, deep breath; it stutters in his chest like something splintered, and shakes nervously on the exhale. “I won’t laugh.”

              Kurapika goes silent, save for their panting, their tiny gasps that sound so much like sobs but won’t let themselves mount to that level. And that’s not self-control, Leorio thinks; that’s a slow sort of destruction, an erosion of the mind and soul and Leorio would do anything, _anything_ to get Kurapika to just let it out in his arms, to cry and cry and not worry about being sneered at or belittled.

                “I wish I was there too,” he murmurs, palms suddenly clammy. “You can laugh if you want, though.”

                 “I won’t.”

                 “Okay. Good.”

                And it feels like they’ve crossed something monumental. Leorio has always acknowledged that bridge between the two of them, albeit an invisible one, built entirely out of things unspoken and Kurapika’s own bristly thorns of distance and anger and obsession. _I’ll cross it when they want me to,_ Leorio thought once, the first time his chest had done something funny at the sight of Kurapika’s accidental smile that had been bitten back in an instant – something Killua had said, some clever turn of phrase that Kurapika had found incredible in the middle of their reading by the window.

 _I’ll cross it when they want me to,_ Leorio had thought again, watching them sleep some few weeks ago without even realizing it, watching them suffer through some unpleasant dream that had their eyelids twitching and their chest stuttering with the shallow breaths of someone running far, far away from something that they have no chance at escaping. A gentle hand to their shoulder had woken them up, and they had snapped and jerked out of sleep like someone possessed; but, god, how their eyes had softened when they found Leorio kneeling by the bedside, who, heart pounding, had been devoting all of his energy into looking concerned only in the most casual of ways instead of looking like he wanted nothing more than to kiss the fear out of Kurapika’s chest through their shaking, open mouth that shaped itself into the whispered words _thank you, Leorio. I’m fine, I’m fine._

                ( _I’m fine, I’m fine,_ they’d said. Twelve hours later, Kurapika’s fist sailing through a concrete wall in some back alley in the silent gray city; eyes blazing, rain falling; Leorio holding them, telling them to breathe, feeling that lithe body trembling with a rage that turned to bitter sorrow that turned to numb, cold grief. _I’ll cross it when they want me to,_ he thought again and again, mouth tentatively touching the crown of Kurapika’s hair, damp from the rain.)

                “Are you alone right now?” Kurapika whispers through the phone, their voice weak like they can’t back up his words with enough support to give them true sound.

                 Leorio glances up at the taxi driver. Their eyes meet in the rear-view mirror. “Gimme a sec,” he says into the phone before covering the mouthpiece and telling the driver, “Hey, actually I’ll just get off here.”

                “You sure?” the driver asks, gruff and unimpressed. “We’re a decent ten blocks away from where you wanna be.”

                 “Yeah, it’s good. I can walk.”

                The driver mumbles something unintelligible before pulling over at the closest stop. Leorio leans forward to pay him, taking care to throw in another few coins for good measure, before waving the man a silent farewell and exiting the cab. Once the door is shut, he tucks his phone close to his ear again and says, “Okay, all set.”

                “Where are you?”

                “Just getting out of a cab, walking in the city now.”

                “Tell me in detail. Tell me about your surroundings, where you are, what everything looks like.”

                Leorio hums in a moment’s thought, starting down the sidewalk. “Okay…I’m walking past a bakery, a small place on the corner of the street. White brick, pink shutters on the windows. The door’s open and it smells good inside…the shopkeeper just heard me say that and she’s smiling.” At this, he gives the elderly woman a wag of his hand and a grin. “She’s waving back at me now. She looks like she’s having a good day.”

                Kurapika is silent on the other end, but their breathing is a touch quieter, and so Leorio guesses he must be doing something right. He goes on. “What next…ah, it’s overcast now, but a little sunny in spots, so you can’t really tell if it’ll start raining or not. The sky’s kind of this murky gray color with some patches of yellow where the sun wants to come out.”

                Then Kurapika speaks, very quietly. “Do you have an umbrella just in case?”

                Leorio laughs. “Nah. I’ll be alright. I’ll walk in the rain if it comes.”

                “Keep talking.” 

                “Okay.” Leorio looks down the sidewalk in search of something eye-catching enough to talk about. Only the same familiar sights come up. “I don’t really know what to talk about. Gimme a prompt or something to get me going?”

                “Tell me how the ground feels beneath you as you walk.”

                “Okay, that I can do.” Leorio centers his thoughts on his every step, brow furrowed in mild concentration. “Alright, uh…well, I’ve been sitting for a while so now my knees are popping as I walk, and I keep wondering if the people nearby can hear.”

                A short thrill jumps up in his chest when he hears Kurapika let out a soft, albeit winded laugh. Leorio counters it with a laugh of his own, the sound of it clumsy and almost shy. “Let’s see, what else…oh, I’m pretty sure I stepped in gum a few steps back, so I’m scuffing my shoe on the ground to get it off but it’s hellbent on sticking there. Lucky me, huh?”

                Kurapika laughs again, this time more honest and clear. Leorio can envision the lilt of their mouth, the white edges of their teeth peeking out from behind their lips, the little bob to their shoulders as their breath leaves them in a little jump; and suddenly Leorio is all too aware of the blood rushing to his cheeks, warming his face in a slow and steady flush. He swallows hard and wipes his hand down his face, shaking his head and smiling a sheepish, bewildered smile that fades in time as his thoughts slow down and materialize into words both murmurous and firm. “And I just keep thinking how much better it’d be if…you were walking next to me, y’know?”

                Kurapika goes quiet again. Leorio can’t even hear them breathing. He jolts back to the present moment and switches his phone to his other ear. “Shit, did I say something weird? Are you there?”

                Then there’s the sound of Kurapika breathing again, even and slow. “No, and yes.”

                Leorio’s shoulders relax. The heat still hasn’t left his face. “Alright…good to know.”

                Neither speaks for a while, but the silence is comfortable, laced with a sweet sort of tension that has Leorio’s heart thumping and his steps quickening as he makes his way across the street. (As if he’s walking directly to where Kurapika is, as if he could just race across the ocean and find them and be with them and _hold_ them.)

                He walks at least three more blocks before deciding to speak again. “Where are you right now?”

                “I booked a hotel for the night. I’m very tired.”

                _You sound it_ , Leorio doesn’t say. “That’s a good move. Is it a nice place?”

                “Not particularly, but it’ll do. It has a nice enough bathtub.”

                Leorio hears the light dripping of water in the background. He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, suddenly feeling sweaty. “Is that what you’re in right now?”

                There’s a pause. “Yes.”

                “I mean, that’s fine and all,” Leorio adds quickly. “Not saying it’s strange or anything…talking to you on the phone while you’re…”

                Kurapika is silent, save for the tiny sounds of the water that Leorio can imagine slipping along their skin, sliding prettily over the light swell of their chest, down their stomach, down –

                “Yeah, that’s probably what I’ll do once I get to my place, too,” he says, speaking rapidly, laughing stupidly through his words. “But I’m more of a shower guy, so…”

                “Leorio?”

                A hard swallow. “Yeah?”

                For a few moments, Leorio thinks his call has been dropped what with how utterly soundless everything becomes on the other end; but then he hears the softness of the water moving around Kurapika’s body and their careful, quiet breathing, and then: “Keep your phone near you tonight.”

                Leorio stops at a crosswalk. He watches the blinking red hand on the sign opposite of the street. His heartbeat seems to pound in time with it. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “I can definitely do that.”

                The goodbye that Kurapika bids is sudden and swift and leaves Leorio dizzy. He stutters his way through a goodbye that he thinks Kurapika only hears half of before the call clicks to an end.

                The crosswalk sign flashes over into the white blink of the walking signal, and Leorio makes his way across the street amongst a sea of people whose names and stories he’ll never know. Looking from one stranger to another, he wonders what sort of person they all have in their lives that they love to the point of nausea and shaking hands.


End file.
